“I’ve found myself thinking about you lately, and how things are going with you, and I just wanted you to know that I … have some tokens of my esteem that you might enjoy. Such as blood. If you have any need for blood, you can have the eight or so units of A-positive that are right here in my body. There’s also a gently used liver in here, lobes of it just lying around if you need them…. Do you like platelets? I have excellent platelets. I have had all my shots. … My kidneys function well. I have two. Either one is yours for the taking. Both, if need be. … I have scads of nerves that you can have. Just take them. My skin would graft onto you beautifully. Bones, stem cells, a whole eyeball I don’t need, feet of intestines, feet. Just a ridiculous amount of health, way more than should rightly belong to someone with my standing in the world.”

Ms. Manteuffel also specifies her large heart to be trimmed to fit Justice Ginsburg’s diminutive size. This frankly gory element brings to mind another ‘body parts’ film, “The Silence of the Lambs” (1991) (released synchronistically on Valentine’s Day). Specifically, how is one not graphically reminded of Jame Gumb’s basement lair of kidnapped and skinned women, or Hannibal Lecter, when Manteuffel suggests:

“If you need to keep me on life support in your house, just in case, while you slice off any bits that appeal to you, that is totally fine and my loved ones will understand. … We have discussed it.”

Ah, what would Dr. Lecter say about that conversation? In any case, notice the conspicuous absence from the rambling list of human anatomy: this scribbler’s brain. Is that because Manteuffel knows Ms. Ginsburg has no use for such an inferior organ? Or does this Post employee use her gray matter so infrequently that it never occurs to her to offer it? Indeed, her opinion piece is so bizarre she should be known henceforth as Macabre Manteuffel!

“MM” would greatly benefit from reading “On Death and Dying” (1969) by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross. Within, the five stages of grief resulting from an unexpected loss (read: the 2016 presidential election) are detailed. Philosophically, Manteuffel is stuck at stage three, known as bargaining. Still, the ultimate goal of any grieving process is acceptance. That means intensive therapy, though not with “Hannibal the Cannibal”. This deluded ideologue will need to keep all of her body parts to get there.